NCR Oktoberfest

[edwardw]

We flew our NCR Oktoberfest launch Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (tomorrow). Today was a *great* day for flying. I awoke to an amazing sunrise on the prairie. There was NOT a cloud in ths sky all day. It was in the mid 60's and the wind never went over 15 mph. I have never seen a more perfect day for flying.

I arrived Friday on the prairie to help prep our project, a 10% Delta II with 9 drop away boosters. A group of about 12 of us have been working on it for 3 months for the launch today. 1M, 6H's lit on the ground with 3 I airstarts. A lot to get done and a lot to go wrong.

At 7 am I woke up to the sunrise and 15 minutes later a salvo of AT redlines was our alarm clock. No wind. The smoke trails stayed for about 10 minutes before dissapating. We had a lot of prep work to get this bird off the ground and into the air.

It all started here....

 

[edwardw]

Steve Mashburn was the driving force behind this project, with Chips and Pops Anderson (son and father) the awesome hosts for build days.

We used Jon Cokers design and plans and started building. We got all major building done last weekend. It was transported up Friday and we hoped for an 11 am flight on Saturday...hoped.

Checklist for Saturday

Build 6 Pro38 H motors
Build 3 Pro38 I motors
Build 1 AMW M motor

Run wires for airstarts
Hook up wires for booster drops
Wire all boosters/airstarts/charges to two RRC2 altimeters and two PET timers from Missileworks.
Jim Amos flies with our club and it was awesome to have him help assemble the electronics. Thanks for everything Jim!!!!

We got all the parts together and a crowd was forming. Everyone was asking questions and walking amongst us. We were more than happy to answer their questions, but after about 35 minutes we had to cordon our area off so we could have some room. When we started rough assembly we realized we left the vent holes off each section. That was quickly fixed with a drill. After this was done we were ready to prep the rocket.

Here is a view of the e-matches leading to the booster separation charges....

These all connected to two Missileworks PET timers. Awesome units.

 

[edwardw]

E-match tally...

9 for dropping the boosters
9 for starting the booster motors (6 ground start and 3 airstart)
4 for deployment (two main two drogue separate RRC2's)
1 for lighting the M motor (enhance with some pyrogen from James Russell)

Total e-matches used, 23.

Before we got the timer bay installed we built and installed all of the motors into the boosters and the main M motor. Jim Amos was busy in the morning so we got this done while he was working.

We set all the Pro38 motors (H and I) at 8 second delays. This was plenty for every one of them to separate and deploy.

Here is the business end of the Delta II. We even had small nozzles to attach.

In this picture we have the main M and one Pro38 left.

The groundstarts, H motors, were placed on each side of our three fins and the airstarts, I motors, were centered in between the fins.

 

[edwardw]

After we installed all the motors we ran the three e-matches through conduit for the airstarts and Jim Amos came over to help with connecting them to the timer. We really appreciated him helping and were glad he oversaw the electronics.

He let us use two of his PET timers and two RRC2's for the flight. A class act.

It took Jim and I about 30 minutes to get all of the e-matches hooked up to the timers while the group rolled (yes rolled) our launch pad out to 500 feet.

We had a rail and tower affixed to a plywood and angle iron frame with wheels that we could wheel around on the prairie. Affectionately known as the 'skateboard'.

Here is a picture of Jim and I starting the process of rigging the timer bay. Deep into thought here

 

[edwardw]

Jim is a great guy and we got it all figured out and done. What a relief. He checked over our RRC2 configuration and gave it his blessing.

Each e-match ran to a PVC coupler on the airframe with 1/4 gram 4Fg in it. Each booster had a mating coupler with a shear pin. When the timer said so it fired the charge and away the booster was to go - as we designed it and hoped it would.

Here we slide the bay into the rocket and put the finishing touches on it.

 

[edwardw]

We then decided to get the M motor retainer in and secured so we could forget about it. In this picture you can see an e-match running around a cone - that is one of the I airstart motors.

 

[edwardw]

After we got the timer bay installed we put the tubing section that would hold the tubular nylon for our drogueless dual deployment system. Here I am putting the last retaining bolt into the coupler (timer) bay.

 

[edwardw]

Here is shot of us putting the M motor in. Quite a case. It has certed at least 5 L3's. A lucky case.

Sorry for being out of order on the pics.


Chips is in the foreground loading the motor.

 

[edwardw]

After we got the motors loaded Steve loaded the RRC2's into their bay with the charges. After this step all of the electronics were done and we just had to pack all the chutes. The booster chutes had been pre-packed already before hand.

Getting there slowing. Pops was calling out T minus times. Here we were about 45 minutes out.

 

[edwardw]

Next Steve laid out and rigged all three main parachutes. We had three 96" flat chutes in this rocket. Each was enclosed in a chute protector. At apogee we were blowing it apart with 2 4 gram charges, one for each altimeter. It would be droguless dual until 1000 when one altimeter would fire one 4 gram charge to shear 3 4-40 nylon pins and pull out the mains. Then just in case at 800 feet the other altimeter was set to fire another 4 gram charge as backup. The nosecone had a camera and weighed about 15 lbs.

Here is Steve rigging the chutes.

 

[edwardw]

We had a small video camera in the nose to catch the action. Here is a shot of the assembled front half of the rocket with the main chutes. You can see the port cut for the camera.

 

[edwardw]

Well, the time had come. The rocket was to be taken out to the pad in two pieces. We walked it out there and started setting it up. We were at about T minus 5 minutes and knew we were not launching on time. We got out to the pad, loaded the rocket all assembled and realized we hadn't done a final CG/CP check. We took the rocket off the pad and checked the CG/CP. They were dead the same. Might make for a squirrely rocket. So we added 5 lbs of lead shot to the weight compartment up front. That took about 90 minutes. We had to walk 500 feet back to the RV several times for all the tools. Also, we had to take out the camera mount assembly to access the weight compartment. Once all was said and done we were about about T plus 1 hour 45 minutes. Not on the pad at all yet. Here is a shot of us putting the bird back on the pad after all our adjustments.

 

[edwardw]

Next we put the nosecone/upper compartment on and lifted her up. It was an amazing moment knowing we were close to launching a project that we had collectively worked 3 months on.

Here is us standing her up for the second time.

 

[edwardw]

After this James Russell and Steve installed all of the igniters and got the wiring all down.

Here is a shot of them working.

 

[edwardw]

After this I don't have any more pictures (right now) of us working. We sent everyone not involved back to the flight line for safety. That meant Samantha had to go back.

This was the next sequence of events. I had to get the nosecone camera in the bay. We had to arm the altimeters and two timers. We also had to do a continuity check on the pad.

Steve went back to the flight line and was doing the check for us. I got the lucky job of climbing the ladder once we had verified continuity and James had hooked up the igniters.

First, on my way up I armed the two Missileworks RRC2 altimeters.

Beep....beep beep....beeep....


Then I installed the camera. Once running we had 20 minutes of video before our memory card ran out. After I installed it it took me about 2 minutes to get the shrould in place and bolted on.

I then descended and started fishing for the two timer switches with a screwdriver in the bay. I found one in about 2 minutes. Nerves were getting to me so I passed the last one off to James. He found it in another two minutes. About 8 minutes had passed by the time we were ready to launch.


We walked to James' truck at 300 feet away incase of fire so we were there fast.

The tension was mounting.

 

[edwardw]

Before I tell the rest of the story....

Let me thank everyone who helped and was a part.

Chips, Pops, Pat, Steve, Brandon, Tim, Don, James, Adam, NCR, Missileworks and Jim Amos for motors. All of the people that contributed to our motor fund (please see www.wsrocketry.com for a complete list)

I had an awesome time on the project and really enjoyed it - it turned out to be much more than building a rocket. It turned into getting to know a great bunch of guys that are now good friends.

 

[edwardw]

10......
9.......
8......

As we counted down this ran through my head.

T - 0
Light 6 Pro38 H motors
Light 1 AMW motor

T + 4
Kick the 6 Pro38 H boosters

T + 5
Light the 3 Pro38 I motors

T + 10
Kick the 3 Pro38 I boosters

Apogee
Split the rocket for droguelesss

1000 feet
Main chutes come out and inflate


8 seconds after the Pro38H's and I's burned out was what we set the motor delay for. Plenty of time to get them off the rocket and the chutes deployed on them (9 differently colored 18" STL Rocketry chutes (shameless plug))

We had Estes starter kits for the kids who went out and shagged the boosters for us. They have younger legs than us and we had a whole busload of them, literally.


7.....
6.....
5.....
4.....
3.....
2......
1.....

 

[edwardw]

0.......

The group of us at 300 feet held our breath.

Not a split second later the 6 Pro38 boosters came to life at the same time.

They idled for about 1/4 second and then the very nice AMW Red Rhino kicked our rocket in the butt and got her off the pad and flying!!!

Woooooohoooo!

We were cheering.

EXACTLY at main motor burnout all 6 H booster were kicked and made a clean seaparation. The were blown 15 feet off the rocket and tumbled downwards.

The the three I boosters lit and kicked our rocket in the butt again and the speed picked up again.

After those burned out the three boosters got kicked. They hung for about 1/2 second before releasing.

We were cheering.

All the 6 boosters had deployed chutes and were coming back.


The rocket coasted for a few seconds and BANG!

We had 8 grams of BP send those two pieces flying apart from each other.

Another loud cheer.

At this time the 3 I boosters had deployed their chutes.

ALL 9 boosters separated cleanly and were under chute!!!!!!!

Then at 1000 feet the three mains shot out and inflated within 100 feet.

We were estatic. Chips had tears in his eyes. There was a bunch of grown men who had put 100's of hours into this project hooting and hollering and dancing around hugging.
The roar from the flightline was amazing. Everyone was cheering. I couldn't believe it.

We had done it - flawlessly. Amazing.

A crowd of kids was stampeding toward the boosters that were now gently touching down. The main body landed about 100 yards beyond the farthest booster. From our vantage point we had laid out all the parts in a path 25 yards wide and 100 yards long. Perfection.

We got to the rocket and found only two slight zippers - easily fixable in both sections. It really doesn't get any better. We had also hit 2000 feet. We wanted to keep it low and slow where everyone could see and feel this.

For the rest of the afternoon we were high on what we had done. Simply amazing that all of us had come together and flown this rocket in a perfect flight.

Another high point was when we watched some tapes from the flightline and could hear the crowd react to each event.

Liftoff - cheers. Boosters coming off - cheers and people saying - look at that - like the real one. And when the chutes came out a huge roar. Chips again had tears in his eyes.

We watched the onboard video and it was great. I'll have it here soon to post.

It was a perfect flight - highlight of the weekend. Even though it was great I'll remember the great times I had building this rocket and getting to know the guys - that's what it is about to me...getting to know people.


Edward (a little teary eyed)

 

[jflis]

wow

simply "wow"

Incredible flight report. Felt like I was there (wish I had been!)

Can't wait to see launch pix. Did anyone capture pictures of the other events (booster separation, etc)?

jim

 

[edwardw]

There are ton of pictures. My wife had been taking them all day ( the pictures I posted) and at 5 seconds left in the countdown her battery died. On the video my mother in law was taking you can hear her and she is slightly annoyed. As everyone arrives back from the prairie I'm sure we will get a lot of pictures and flight videos.

Here is a picture of a couple kids bringing home a booster.

 

[edwardw]

Here is a picture of our support crew (wives and families) handing out the kits for the boosters.

 

[edwardw]

We got them all back. I don't know how many kits we had (I think about 50) but we handed them all out.

 

[edwardw]

Here is a picture of the section the boosters attach to after flight. Looks a lot different without the strap ons.

 

[edwardw]

Last picture until I get some more, but here is the nosecone - you can see the camera shroud in place on it and the upper body tube. At the very end you can see a small zipper we got.

 

[edwardw]

I did find one picture of the boosters under chute with the main rocket. This is right after the three I's were kicked. You can see the main rocket under three chutes, green, red and gray. The AMW tracking smoke grain is still putting out some smoke. Then you can see three smaller white rockets under chutes.

 

[Reeferjon]

Many Congrats you guys, wow can't wait for the pics/video.

Edward, you sure can tell a story, just read it to the kids, will tell you about it later LOL.

 

[edwardw]

Here are a couple pictures I grabbed from my video camera. They aren't the best quality.

This is one of the Pro38's coming up to pressure.

 

[edwardw]

And here in this one we have cleared the tower and you can see that nice Red Rhino flame. You can also see that there is a gap in the Pro38 flames - those are the airstarts just waiting for T+5.

 

[n3tjm]

Very Cool. The first picture looks like a BP cluster . Can't wait to see the video .

 

[marvSRG]

FREAKING AWESOME!!!! I WANT TO SEE MORE!!!!!! I LOVE IT!!!!!!